I love my family, the place I live, the books I write, and the pictures I take

The Self-Publishing Experience

My novel will be up for sell in thirty-six hours and the entire process was one wild ride. Let’s summarize:

2005

I started reading Naruto. I loved the concept so much because the main hero would never give up. But my mind can’t just read. It must create. Thus, I started forming an enemy/ally for Naruto. He had no name but his eyes were sick.

2008

The fan fiction disappeared as I started considering creating my own comic. I got into character design and came up with some concepts for a cartoon called Barcode.

2009

I met up with a guy that had connections with a manga publisher. I submitted my story to the group and was praised for the story, but rejected. I’m not sure if it was my lack of writing skill or the African-American characters, but it didn’t work out. The beauty, however, lied in the actual writing process. It was the first time I’d written anything for the story line.

2011

After dreaming about the story for years or playing fight scenes in my mind, I decided to take time to write everything down. My in-laws were in town and I couldn’t use my computer because it is connected to my TV screen. I needed to kill time.

I read Harry Potter the first two days. Then, I finally decided to type my story on my wife’s laptop, but I didn’t like everything about the original concept. I wanted show my vision of America’s future and make it more diverse with various cultures and religions beliefs blending with each other. So, I changed the characters and premise of the first story drastically. It was time to write.

NaNoWriMo was only a week away, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to get the thoughts out of my head. However, after one week and 50,000 words, I didn’t like it. So, I started over and decided to write it in first person, which is my strength.

The story was a lot better, but the original problems I created with writing in third person were still there. I rewrote it once more from Spencer’s perspective. This time, I decided to join NaNoWriMo and finished my goal in three weeks: 100k words.

2012

I found an editor, cover artist, and began reaching out to others on Twitter. Now, I’m only a few hours away from seeing my novel on Amazon. I can’t wait.

Many friends and family have agreed to purchase my novel on one day, February 6th. I’ve already formatted, proofread, and submitted. I’m just waiting on the results.

Am I nervous? Of course. There are still things that need to be fixed in my novel. I even believe I missed a few grammatical errors, but I always find things that need to be changed. If I didn’t trust the quality of the story and my ability to market the book, I’d never publish. I’d worry too much about little things that readers might hate. Refusing to live in fear, I’m self-publishing and eagerly awaiting to hear the response from friends, family, and hopefully fans.

I want to thank any and everyone who has encouraged me in this process. I have a lot of Twitter friends that bring tears to my eyes when they say they’ll support and can’t wait for the release. I really, truly hope the story doesn’t disappoint them. I’m so grateful that they’re backing me up.